Georgetown Americas Institute

Santos and Flores’ graduate capstone sought to add an individual experience to the social sciences by taking the macro-level dialogue of the dictatorship in Chile, and migration to the United States, to a micro-level by recording the experiences of a family of Chilean exiles currently living in Boulder, Colorado. For this reason, Santos and Flores decided to supplement the Library of Congress’ formal archive by creating an alternative archive with material culture collected from this same family. By incorporating the family scene as history, Santos and Flores’ work uses personal memory to better understand what we thought we knew about a well-known event in history, as well as to provide a deeper understanding of migration, identity, and advocacy that better informs the way we think about diasporic communities in the United States.

Santos and Flores were able to travel to Boulder, Colorado, with the support of GAI to conduct their field work. While there, Flores and Santos collaborated with the Santos family that was exiled from Tomé, Chile to Boulder, Colorado in the mid-1970s. There they sorted through multiple boxes the family had stored away and had not opened for years, as well as conducted in-person oral history interviews with four key family members. In total Santos and Flores discovered 76 photos, 42 letters, and 23 documents indicating political activism, along with a wallet that contained Chilean escudos (a currency no longer used). Collecting the family’s material culture beforehand also gave way to richer oral histories, as they were able to provide substantial background context and detailed accounts for each discovered item.